Vitsebsk: Entrepreneurs’ Association Denied Premises for Conference

07.05.2007.

The administration of a hotel in Vitsebsk has cancelled its arrangement with the association of small entrepreneurs Perspective that planned to hold a forum of sole entrepreneurs at the hotel’s conference hall on 7 May.

As the organization’s leader Anatol Shumchanka said, the organization had already paid the rent when Luchosa hotel’s director said that the auditorium could not serve as the forum’s venue ‘for technical reasons’.

According to Mr. Shumchanka, the hotel administrator explained last week that the hall had been flooded after a water pipe had burst during repairs. ‘I arrived in Vitsebsk two hours later, entered the conference hall and saw a banquet there’, he added.

Perspective originally planned to hold the forum in the city’s Trade Union Training Center on 16 April. The administration of the building gave its tentative permission but later reversed the decision, saying that the auditorium was to be renovated on that date.

’We are seeking dialogue with the authorities, but they are afraid of the voice of entrepreneurs and even economic forums where there is no politics’, Mr. Shumchanka said.